Well, tomorrow is the first day of summer and although we are not finished...close enough that we can stop anytime, drop what we’re doing and take off for parts unknown to do something that we just noticed was going on. Last summer we were so far behind with our desired accomplishments and plans, that we couldn’t do that. We only have a few things to do, like put up a trellis on both ends of the hospice gift shop before opening and install the chain link fencing for the Cornish Cross Rock broiler meat birds in the brooding house. The fencing is only a day’s work at the most, once we get the fencing from our friend Charlie. The trellis will be a few hours to erect from regular vinyl trellis from Lowe’s, so I’m not too concerned.
We can’t start the farm store addition to the barn until school is out and Steve arrives with his excavator to do the drainage project around the barn. That will stop the flooding in and around the barn so we don’t have flooding during torrential downpours during or after thunderstorms, or during the spring snow melt like this past spring. Once Steve works his magic around the barn, we can do the farm store, where everything produced on the farm will be stored for sale by our customers. The refrigerator will contain eggs, cheese, frozen chicken broilers and turkeys. There will be shelves and bins to hold the honey, maple syrup, yarns and fibers harvested and processed here on the farm. It will be so easy to load up from there for the farmer’s market and when we return, tired and worn out from a day in the sun, we can unload into the store in a jiffy and be done. Now we must go here and there, storing things in different buildings, refrigerators in the barn, house and basement.
We have eliminated 80% of our summer mowing and 100% of our summer feed cost for the sheep and alpacas by fencing in around both sides of the pond and east side yard by the old barns. The livestock simply graze all day, snooze in the shade or barn and chew their cuds. We are going to sink fence posts around the west yard, by Fort Apache and where the garden is. The garden is completely fenced, so there will only be the perimeter fence from the porch of the house, along the driveway, then north along the Fort Apache fence, and then eastward along the stone wall to the existing west yard fence gate. With the completion of that fence, it will eliminate 95% of the mowing here and give us control to decide where the sheep and alpacas will browse, so each area can regenerate to give us excellent browsing all spring, summer and fall long. We will only have to purchase hay and grain feed or pellets in the winter months when the grass is dormant.
Oh, yeah...we still need to finish the little garden pond out front and get it bubbling over the rocks and get the plants in....A dirty job, but not to hard... Man, maybe I better quite thinking....because fall is coming you know! It’s just around the corner too........
040488 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC
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